Archive for February, 2014

So if you forget Windows 7 guest or user password then you can reset it by using the administrator account. But what if you’re the only administrator account got locked and unable to login? As long as you have a PCUnlocker boot media, you can use it to bypass Windows 7 password easily. This tutorial will walk through the steps to bypass Windows 7 login password from scratch.

How to Bypass Windows 7 Login Password from Scratch?

Before we can do anything, we need to make a PCUnlocker Live CD (or USB drive) using a computer with internet connection. Download the self-extracting archive of PCUnlocker which contains a bootable ISO image. Burn the ISO file to a CD or USB drive with ISO2Disc, ImgBurn, Rufus or other similar burning programs.

Insert PCUnlocker Live CD into your optical drive and then restart your locked computer. If you have either on a USB flash drive, that will work too. As your computer boots there should be a splash screen, and in some corner of a screen, there is usually a message that will flash telling you which key is used to enter “Setup” or something similar.

Once in BIOS Setup, look for a section labeled “Boot Priority” or “Boot Order” and follow the on-screen instructions for changing it such that CD/DVD-ROM is a higher priority than the hard drive. After changing the boot order, you should now be able to boot into the PCUnlocker Live CD that we’ve just created.

When presented with the PCUnlocker screen, select your desired user account and click on “Reset Password” button. This will reset lost Windows 7 login password as well as unlocking your disabled or locked-out account.

Remove the PCUnlocker Live CD and then restart your computer. This time your computer will boot up from the local hard drive and it allows you to login to Windows 7 without a password!

When you install or upgrade to Windows 8.1, you’ll be forced to create a Microsoft account or use an existing Windows Live account to log on your computer. There is no option to setup a local account during the installation. Microsoft account is now the preferred sign-in type since Windows 8. However, if you insist on using a local account, you’ve come into the right place. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps to setup / install Windows 8.1 without a Microsoft account.

Tips: If you forgot your local or Microsoft account and can’t sign into Windows 8, you can bypass the password with PCUnlocker and regain access to your computer.

How to Setup Windows 8.1 without Microsoft Account?

Boot your computer from Windows 8.1 installation DVD or USB drive, and follow the setup wizard until you see the screen where asks for your Microsoft account to continue.

Enter an invalid Windows Live account or an incorrect password like shown in the following screenshot. Click on Next. You’ll get some information that indicates your email/password is not correct.

Simply click on the lightly-colored link that said “continue without a Microsoft Account”.

There are chances that you might get locked out of your computer because of forgotten the administrator password. So you then need to find some programs to crack / recover your password. As far as password recovery utilities go, Cain & Abel is by far one of the best freeware out there. This tutorial will walk through recovering Windows 7/Vista/XP password with Cain & Abel.

How to Recover Windows Password with Cain & Abel?

Forgot your administrator password and can’t log in? Cain & Abel needs to be installed, so you must have another working computer to recover your password. First of all, remove the hard drive from your locked machine and then attach it to a working computer as a secondary drive. Then follow these steps to recover Windows password:

Visit the Cain & Abel website and download the Windows NT/2000/XP version of the program. Install the program on your computer. During installation, you’ll also be prompted to install WinPcap, which is fine.

Click on the “Tools” menu and select “Syskey Decoder”. On the Syskey Decoder dialog, click on the “…” button to locate the SYSTEM file of your locked Windows installation. By default, the SYSTEM file is located in C:\Windows\System32\Config. The program will immediately display the decoded boot key which is required for cracking your Windows password.

Click on the “Cracker” tab. On the left, click on the “LM & NTLM Hashes” and then click the big blue plus sign on the Cain toolbar. Make sure the “Import Hashes from a SAM database” button is checked. Choose the SAM file of your locked Windows installation and enter the boot key that you’ve got in the step above.

Click Next. All the user accounts will be loaded to the right. Right-click on the user account you need the password for, choose Brute-Force Attack -> NTLM Hashes.

Now check predefined under charset and select the suitable dictionary to use and click start.

That’s it! Just wait for Cain & Abel to recover the password!

If you have no way of getting the SAM and SYSTEM files from your Windows PC, you will not be able to use Cain & Abel to recover your password. If you have no luck with Cain & Abel, I recommend you to use PCUnlocker Live CD which can remove your forgotten Windows password instantly.

Whether you have forgotten your Windows login password, or you want to hack into another user account on Windows XP or Windows 7 PCs, here is an easy way to bypass Windows 7, Vista and XP login password. PCLoginNow (or PC Login Now) is a free bootable live CD with tool to remove existing Windows password that has been forgotten, lost or simply do no have, and assign a new password to the Windows admins or users. This tutorial will walk through bypassing a lost Windows login password with PCLoginNow.

Note: PCLoginNow is a nice freeware but it doesn’t work with Windows 8 and it runs on CD only. If you need to reset Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 password with CD/USB drive, I recommend you to use PCUnlocker.

How to Bypass Windows 7/Vista/XP Login Password with PCLoginNow?

To get started you need to download PCLoginNow from the developer’s website. The download is in the form of a single file named PCLoginNow_Full.exe. Double-click on the exe file to extract the ISO image: PCLoginNow_Full.iso.

Burn the ISO image to a blank CD or DVD using ImgBurn, BurnCDCC or your favorite CD/DVD burning software. After that, go to the computer that you’re trying to gain access to and insert the CD into optical drive disc tray, and boot up computer from the CD to start and run PCLoginNow automatically. Normally, user is required to press any key on BIOS boot screen to boot from CD. If you don’t see this message, or cannot boot from CD, change the boot device priority or sequence list in BIOS to make CD/DVD drive comes on top.

Once PCLoginNow begins to load, the first screen you’ll see is boot mode option. Type 1 and press Enter to get it to boot in normal mode. The next thing you’ll see is several lines of text that quickly run down the screen. You don’t need to do anything here.

After the initial startup of your computer and loading of Linux is complete, the wizard of PCLoginNow program should display. Simply click the Next button. However, the mouse might doesn’t work, so you have to use the arrow key on the keyboard to move the focus to the Next button, and then press Enter key.

The next screen PCLoginNow will display the operating systems that have been recognized by itself. Choose a single operating system installation you wish to bypass the login password for and click Next.

Choose a user account, PCLoginNow will display the properties of your selected user account. To reset the password, select the check boxes for “password is empty” and “password never expire” to remove the existing login password.

Exit the PCLoginNow program and restart your computer. Remove the CD and the system will boot normally from your local hard drive. You can then log on Windows by leaving password field blank.

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I am locked out of my Windows 8.1 laptop and cannot unlock my Microsoft account. How can I get back into my laptop?

Locked out of your Windows 8.1 computer and can’t remember the password of your local or Microsoft account? Windows 8.1 encourages users to log in with Microsoft Account for enjoying the benefits that cloud brings. However, if you forgot the Microsoft account password, things can get more tricky than using a local account. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to unlock Windows 8.1 computers with a boot CD, no matter you’re using a Microsoft account or local account.

How to Unlock Windows 8.1 Computers?

First of all, you have to download the ISO image of PCUnlocker using an alternate computer you can access. Once the download is complete, unzip the download file and you’ll get the bootable ISO image: pcunlocker.iso. Burn it to a blank CD (or USB drive) using the freeware ISO2Disc or ImgBurn.

Now turn on your Windows 8.1 computer that you’re trying to unlock. Insert the burned CD and set the boot sequence to CD first in the computer BIOS.

Once your computer boots from the CD, it begins to load the Windows PE system. After the booting procedure is complete, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program which displays a list of local accounts found in your Windows SAM database.

Choose a local account and then click on “Reset Password” button. Confirm your operation and the program will reset/unlock your password quickly. If you need to unlock a Microsoft account, choose the local account that’s been linked to your Microsoft account, and click on “Reset Password” button. The program will update the cached logon credentials so you can later sign into your Windows 8.1 Microsoft account with a new password.

The last step is to restart the computer and remove the PCUnlocker Live CD. You can then log back into your computer with a new password!

If you’re using PCUnlocker Std or Pro editions, you may need to disable UEFI to run the Live CD. If you’re unfamiliar with UEFI BIOS, I suggest you to use PCUnlocker Enterprise, which can boot in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS mode. PCUnlocker can also be used to reset lost Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP passwords.